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The following letter by former
U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has been sent to all members of the
UN Security Council, with copies to the UN General Assembly.
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Secretary General Kofi Annan
United Nations New York, NY
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Dear Secretary General Annan,
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George Bush will invade Iraq
unless restrained by the United Nations. Other international organizations--
including the European Union, the African Union, the OAS, the Arab League,
stalwart nations courageous enough to speak out against superpower aggression,
international peace movements, political leadership, and public opinion
within the United States -- must do their part for peace. If the United
Nations, above all, fails to oppose a U.S. invasion of Iraq, it will forfeit
its honor, integrity and raison d'etre.
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A military attack on Iraq
is obviously criminal; completely inconsistent with urgent needs of the
Peoples of the United Nations; unjustifiable on any legal or moral ground;
irrational in light of the known facts; out of proportion to other existing
threats of war and violence; and a dangerous adventure risking continuing
conflict throughout the region and far beyond for years to come. The most
careful analysis must be made as to why the world is subjected to such
threats of violence by its only superpower, which could so safely and importantly
lead us on the road to peace, and how the UN can avoid the human tragedy
of yet another major assault on Iraq and the powerful stimulus for retaliatory
terrorism it would create.
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1. President George Bush Came
to Office Determined to Attack Iraq and Change its Government.
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George Bush is moving apace
to make his war unstoppable and soon. Having stated last Friday that he
did not believe Iraq would accept UN inspectors, he responded to Iraq's
prompt, unconditional acceptance by calling any reliance on it a "false
hope" and promising to attack Iraq alone if the UN does not act. He is
obsessed with the desire to wage war against Iraq and install his surrogates
to govern Iraq by force. Days after the most bellicose address ever made
before the United Nations -- an unprecedented assault on the Charter of
the United Nations, the rule of law and the quest for peace -- the U.S.
announced it was changing its stated targets in Iraq over the past eleven
years, from retaliation for threats and attacks on U.S. aircraft which
were illegally invading Iraq's airspace on a daily basis. How serious could
those threats and attacks have been if no U.S. aircraft was ever hit? Yet
hundreds of people were killed in Iraq by U.S. rockets and bombs, and not
just in the so called "no fly zone," but in Baghdad itself. Now the U.S.
proclaims its intentions to destroy major military facilities in Iraq in
preparation for its invasion, a clear promise of aggression now. Every
day there are threats and more propaganda is unleashed to overcome resistance
to George Bush's rush to war. The acceleration will continue until the
tanks roll, unless nonviolent persuasion prevails.
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2. George Bush Is Leading
the United States and Taking the UN and All Nations Toward a Lawless World
of Endless Wars.
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George Bush in his "War on
Terrorism" has asserted his right to attack any country, organization,
or people first, without warning in his sole discretion. He and members
of his administration have proclaimed the old restraints that law sought
to impose on aggression by governments and repression of their people,
no longer consistent with national security. Terrorism is such a danger,they
say, that necessity compels the U.S. to strike first to destroy the potential
for terrorist acts from abroad and to make arbitrary arrests, detentions,
interrogations, controls and treatment of people abroad and within the
U.S. Law has become the enemy of public safety. "Necessity is the argument
of tyrants." "Necessity never makes a good bargain."
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Heinrich Himmler, who instructed
the Nazi Gestapo "Shoot first, ask questions later, and I will protect
you," is vindicated by George Bush. Like the Germany described by Jorge
Luis Borges in Deutsches Requiem, George Bush has now "proffered (the world)
violence and faith in the sword," as Nazi Germany did. And as Borges wrote,
it did not matter to faith in the sword that Germany was defeated. "What
matters is that violence ... now rules." Two generations of Germans have
rejected that faith. Their perseverance in the pursuit of peace will earn
the respect of succeeding generations everywhere.
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The Peoples of the United
Nations are threatened with the end of international law and protection
for human rights by George Bush's war on terrorism and determination to
invade Iraq.
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Since George Bush proclaimed
his "war on terrorism," other countries have claimed the right to strike
first. India and Pakistan brought the earth and their own people closer
to nuclear conflict than at any time since October 1962 as a direct consequence
of claims by the U.S. of the unrestricted right to pursue and kill terrorists,
or attack nations protecting them, based on a unilateral decision without
consulting the United Nations, a trial, or revealing any clear factual
basis for claiming its targets are terrorists and confined to them.
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There is already a near epidemic
of nations proclaiming the right to attack other nations or intensify violations
of human rights of their own people on the basis of George Bush's assertions
of power in the war against terrorism. Mary Robinson, in her quietly courageous
statements as her term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ended,
has spoken of the "ripple effect" U.S. claims of right to strike first
and suspend fundamental human rights protection is having.
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On September 11, 2002, Colombia,
whose new administration is strongly supported by the U.S., "claimed new
authority to arrest suspects without warrants and declare zones under military
control," including "[N]ew powers, which also make it easier to wiretap
phones and limit foreigners' access to conflict zones...allow security
agents to enter your house or office without a warrant at any time of day
because they think you're suspicious." These additional threats to human
rights follow Post-September 11 "emergency" plans to set up a network of
a million informants in a nation of forty million. See, New York Times,
September 12, 2002, p. A7.
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3. The United States, Not
Iraq, Is the Greatest Single Threat to the Independence and Purpose of
the United Nations.
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President Bush's claim that
Iraq is a threat justifying war is false. Eighty percent of Iraq's military
capacity was destroyed in 1991 according to the Pentagon. Ninety percent
of materials and equipment required to manufacture weapons of mass destruction
was destroyed by UN inspectors during more than eight years of inspections.
Iraq was powerful, compared to most of its neighbors, in 1990. Today it
is weak. One infant out of four born live in Iraq weighs less than 2 kilos,
promising short lives, illness and impaired development. In 1989, fewer
than one in twenty infants born live weighed less than two kilos. Any threat
to peace Iraq might become is remote, far less than that of many other
nations and groups and cannot justify a violent assault. An attack on Iraq
will make attacks in retaliation against the U.S. and governments which
support its actions far more probable for years to come.
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George Bush proclaims Iraq
a threat to the authority of the United Nations while U.S.-coerced UN sanctions
continue to cause the death rate of the Iraqi people to increase. Deaths
caused by sanctions have been at genocidal levels for twelve years. Iraq
can only plead helplessly for an end to this crime against its people.
The UN role in the sanctions against Iraq compromise and stain the UN's
integrity and honor. This makes it all the more important for the UN now
to resist this war.
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Inspections were used as an
excuse to continue sanctions for eight years while thousands of Iraqi children
and elderly died each month. Iraq is the victim of criminal sanctions that
should have been lifted in 1991. For every person killed by terrorist acts
in the U.S. on 9/11, five hundred people have died in Iraq from sanctions.
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It is the U.S. that threatens
not merely the authority of the United Nations, but its independence, integrity
and hope for effectiveness. The U.S. pays UN dues if, when and in the amount
it chooses. It coerces votes of members. It coerces choices of personnel
on the Secretariat. It rejoined UNESCO to gain temporary favor after 18
years of opposition to its very purposes. It places spies in UN inspection
teams.
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The U.S. has renounced treaties
controlling nuclear weapons and their proliferation, voted against the
protocol enabling enforcement of the Biological Weapons Convention, rejected
the treaty banning land mines, endeavored to prevent its creation and since
to cripple the International Criminal Court, and frustrated the Convention
on the Child and the prohibition against using children in war. The U.S.
has opposed virtually every other international effort to control and limit
war, protect the environment, reduce poverty and protect health.
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George Bush cites two invasions
of other countries by Iraq during the last 22 years. He ignores the many
scores of U.S. invasions and assaults on other countries in Africa, Asia,
and the Americas during the last 220 years, and the permanent seizure of
lands from Native Americans and other nations -- lands like Florida, Texas,
Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Puerto Rico, among others, seized
by force and threat.
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In the same last 22 years
the U.S. has invaded, or assaulted Grenada, Nicaragua, Libya, Panama, Haiti,
Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and others directly, while
supporting assaults and invasions elsewhere in Europe, Asia, Africa, and
the Americas.
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It is healthy to remember
that the U.S. invaded and occupied little Grenada in 1983 after a year
of threats, killing hundreds of civilians and destroying its small mental
hospital, where many patients died. In a surprise attack on the sleeping
and defenseless cities of Tripoli and Benghazi in April 1986, the U.S.
killed hundreds of civilians and damaged four foreign embassies. It launched
21 Tomahawk cruise missiles against the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in
Khartoum in August 1998, destroying the source of half the medicines available
to the people of Sudan. For years it has armed forces in Uganda and southern
Sudan fighting the government of Sudan. The U.S. has bombed Iraq on hundreds
of occasions since the Gulf War, including this week, killing hundreds
of people without a casualty or damage to an attacking plane.
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4. Why Has George Bush Decided
The U.S. Must Attack Iraq Now?
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There is no rational basis
to believe Iraq is a threat to the United States, or any other country.
The reason to attack Iraq must be found elsewhere.
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As governor of Texas, George
Bush presided over scores of executions, more than any governor in the
United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 (after a hiatus
from 1967). He revealed the same zeal he has shown for "regime change"
for Iraq when he oversaw the executions of minors, women, retarded persons
and aliens whose rights under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
of notification of their arrest to a foreign mission of their nationality
were violated. The Supreme Court of the U.S. held that executions of a
mentally retarded person constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation
of the U.S. Constitution.
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George Bush addresses the
United Nations with these same values and willfulness.
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His motives may include to
save a failing Presidency which has converted a healthy economy and treasury
surplus into multi-trillion dollar losses; to fulfill the dream, which
will become a nightmare, of a new world order to serve special interests
in the U.S.; to settle a family grudge against Iraq; to weaken the Arab
nation, one people at a time; to strike a Muslim nation to weaken Islam;
to protect Israel, or make its position more dominant in the region; to
secure control of Iraq's oil to enrich U.S. interests, further dominate
oil in the region and control oil prices. Aggression against Iraq for any
of these purposes is criminal and a violation of a great many international
conventions and laws including the General Assembly Resolution on the Definition
of Aggression of December 14, 1974.
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Prior regime changes by the
U.S. brought to power among a long list of tyrants, such leaders as the
Shah of Iran, Mobutu in the Congo, Pinochet in Chile, all replacing democratically
elected heads of government.
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5. A Rational Policy Intended
to Reduce the Threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction in The Middle East
Must Include Israel.
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A UN or U.S. policy of selecting
enemies of the U.S. for attack is criminal and can only heighten hatred,
division, terrorism and lead to war. The U.S. gives Israel far more aid
per capita than the total per capita income of sub Sahara Africans from
all sources. U.S.-coerced sanctions have reduced per capita income for
the people of Iraq by 75% since 1989. Per capita income in Israel over
the past decade has been approximately 12 times the per capita income of
Palestinians.
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Israel increased its decades-long
attacks on the Palestinian people, using George Bush's proclamation of
war on terrorism as an excuse, to indiscriminately destroy cities and towns
in the West Bank and Gaza and seize more land in violation of international
law and repeated Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.
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Israel has a stockpile of
hundreds of nuclear warheads derived from the United States, sophisticated
rockets capable of accurate delivery at distances of several thousand kilometers,
and contracts with the U.S. for joint development of more sophisticated
rocketry and other arms with the U.S.
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Possession of weapons of mass
destruction by a single nation in a region with a history of hostility
promotes a race for proliferation and war. The UN must act to reduce and
eliminate all weapons of mass destruction, not submit to demands to punish
areas of evil and enemies of the superpower that possesses the majority
of all such weapons and capacity for their delivery.
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Israel has violated and ignored
more UN Resolutions for forty years than any other nation. It has done
so with impunity. The violation of Security Council resolutions cannot
be the basis for a UN-approved assault on any nation, or people, in a time
of peace, or the absence of a threat of imminent attack, but comparable
efforts to enforce Security Council resolutions must be made against all
nations who violate them.
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6. The Choice Is War Or Peace.
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The UN and the U.S. must seek
peace, not war. An attack on Iraq may open a Pandora's box that will condemn
the world to decades of spreading violence. Peace is not only possible;
it is essential, considering the heights to which science and technology
have raised the human art of planetary and self-destruction.
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If George Bush is permitted
to attack Iraq with or without the approval of the UN, he will become Public
Enemy Number One -- and the UN itself worse than useless, an accomplice
in the wars it was created to end. The Peoples of the World then will have
to find some way to begin again if they hope to end the scourge of war.
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This is a defining moment
for the United Nations. Will it stand strong, independent and true to its
Charter, international law and the reasons for its being, or will it submit
to the coercion of a superpower leading us toward a lawless world and condone
war against the cradle of civilization?
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Do not let this happen.
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Sincerely,
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Ramsey Clark
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